How Rookie Head Coaches Look to Buck NHL Hiring Trends

The winds of change are blowing. And although it may feel like a slight breeze rather than hurricane-force winds, more NHL teams are trusting rookie head coaches to bring innovation into their franchise. Sure, we’ve seen hires in the last year like Peter Laviolette in New York (it’s working?), John Hynes (it’s starting to work) and Mike Babcock (definitely didn’t work), but a handful of general managers have seen fit to trust new blood – rather than the unofficial hiring practice of the NHL: hiring a retread. And although it might be early, there’s a lot to like.

There was no hotter name than Spencer Carbery when the NHL’s coaching carousel began in earnest last year. The youngest coach in the league at 41, earned coach of the year in the ECHL (South Carolina – 2014) and AHL (Washington’s affiliate Hershey – 2021) and after a two-year stint as an assistant in Toronto, returned to the Capitals organization as Peter Laviolette’s replacement as the bench boss. And despite some recent frustration and the slump of Alexander Ovechkin, Carbery has shown promise that his four-year contract (and aggressive recruitment by other teams, including Nashville) was worth fighting for. The rookie head coach has led the Washington Capitals to a 14-8-3 record, and currently sits in the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot. Sure, the Capitals are tied for last in the NHL for goals scored with 64, they share that dubious honor with San Jose who has played four more games. But Carbery still looks like a good decision with the Caps sitting 15th in the league after a third of the season.

On the opposite end of the age spectrum is Anaheim’s first year coach, Greg Cronin at 60. Cronin has worked in hockey for over two decades: most recently the head coach of the Colorado Eagles of the AHL for five years, but also several stints as an NHL assistant as well as head coaching jobs at the collegiate and AHL level (with Bridgeport). But this is Anaheim, and it was no secret that Cronin would be inheriting one of the toughest situations in all of the league. The Ducks finished last season as the NHL’s worst team, an abysmal 23-47-12, but the roster has a lot of young talent like Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale – and the Ducks are banking on Cronin to develop this young talent and pull the franchise out of the NHL’s basement. Despite currently sitting at 31st with a record of 10-17-0, the Ducks are on pace to eclipse last season’s win total – which would only take 13 more wins over the next 54 games. It may be hard to judge Cronin’s impact so far with a team full of younger players – but other coaches have inherited similar situations to varying levels of success.

Two of these names have already taken over as head coach this season after their predecessors were fired early – and that’s not including Drew Bannister, a first-time NHL coach who was named as Craig Berube’s replacement in St. Louis late last night. First is Pascal Vincent, who took over the Columbus head coaching job after the disaster that was Mike Babcock’s brief tenure in charge. Vincent inherited the league’s 2nd worst team from last season (finishing just one point above Anaheim) and it shows: the Blue Jackets currently have a 9-16-5 record, but again, they are also on pace to be at least somewhat better than last year’s model.

Conversely, you have Edmonton’s Kris Knobauch. The 45-year old most recently served as the Hartford Wolf Pack’s head coach in the AHL in over four seasons. Knoblauch was hired exactly one month ago following Jay Woodcroft’s abysmal 3-9-1 start the season (a points percentage of 26.9%, well below his 72.4% in 2021-22 and 66.5% last season) – and things are looking up. The Oilers are a team built to succeed now with several superstars like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, and they picked up players that could have an instant impact, like former Nashville Predator defenseman Mattias Ekholm, but Woodcroft couldn’t steer out of the skid and he was replaced after 133 games as Edmonton’s bench boss. And it looks to be exactly what the Oilers needed – Edmonton’s 10-3-0 record since the coaching change literally erases the damage of the start of the season – his 20 points in 13 games eclipsing Woodcroft’s 7 in the same amount of time. Sure, those 13 games could still end up costing Edmonton later, but what seemed like a risky move so early in the season definitely seems to be paying off.

Now when it comes to “rookie” head coaches, there are two names left off the list that I still consider to be new head coaches – Calgary’s Ryan Huska and Nashville’s Andrew Brunette. Huska did coach just two games in the 2021-22 season as Geoff Ward’s replacement, but did not earn a win, and is essentially brand new. The Flames are an interesting team this season – after a somewhat chaotic offseason that has continued into the year, Huska has the Flames sitting at 11-14-4, and there will definitely be work to do to match last season’s 38-27-17 record which kept them from the Western Conference playoffs by just two points.

The other coach to consider (and this may not be a surprise to you readers) is the Nashville Predator’s Andrew Brunette. Yes, Brunette did serve as Florida’s interim head coach for 75 games in 2021-22 – taking the Panther’s to an incredibly impressive 51-18-6 (72%) and into the playoffs – but Brunette was not hired in the offseason after a coaching search – he was the next man up after Joel Quenneville’s exit. His “interim” label as head coach seemed to be just that – despite the incredible season and the disappointing second-round exit in the playoffs, the Panthers did not see Brunette as the head coach of the future, hiring Paul Maurice while Brunette served as an associate head coach last season with the New Jersey Devils. It took a year, but Brunette was finally hired as an NHL head coach without the interim label, when new Predators general manager Barry Trotz announced Brunette – who scored the franchise’s very first goal in 1998 – as John Hynes’ successor and the fourth coach in Nashville history. Where Brunette previously inherited an incredibly talent Panthers roster two seasons ago, this year he has been put in charge of essentially rebuilding the team from the ground up – departures included long-time Predators Ekholm, Matt Duchene, Ryan Johansen and others – and doing so by bringing a new style of hockey to Bridgestone Arena. A month ago, Nashville lost to Anaheim at home and fell to 5-10-0, but the team has completely turned around, going an impressive 11-3-0 with a roster that includes a ton of youth and a handful of veteran free agents like Ryan O’Reilly.

So how can we judge head coaching jobs this early in the season – especially when you take the talent inherited into consideration? One way is to look at Evolving Hockey’s Goals Above Replacement (GAR) shows the total impact of a skater – and team GAR is just the sum of everyone on the roster.

Upon examination, these rookie head coaches separate into tiers. First is Cronin and Vincent, who inherited the two worst teams in the NHL last season – both by record and GAR/60 – and the teams aren’t much better either statistically or in the standings. Next are the coaches who inherited middling-teams last season: Brunette, Carbery and Huska. While Carbery and Huska have seen their team perform worse than last season (from 18th and 19th to 29th and 30th respectively), Carbery has a winning record at 14-8-3 – just three more wins than Huska at 11-14-4. Andrew Brunette, on the other hand has the team slightly improved in GAR (22nd to 20th), and a 16-13-0 record that has Nashville suprisingly in a playoff spot. Finally, there’s Knoblauch. He only has 13 games to look at, but has gone an impressive 10-3-0 in those games (76.9% points percentage), but inherited what is easily the most talented roster on this list, and is still 10 places higher in this season’s GAR metrics than the next highest coach, Andrew Brunette.

It may be too early to make definitive judgement on these hires for these six (soon to be seven) teams, but there’s a lot to like from the new blood that’s entered the NHL this season. With Brunette, Knoblauch and Carbery coaching teams that could reasonably reach the postseason (Nashville and Washington sit in wild card spots – Edmonton sits in 9th), maybe we’ll start to see teams take more chances and bring in more new coaching talent and we might start to see a much-needed decline in hiring retreads some day soon.